Page 93 of The Towering Sky
“So you moved here directly from London?” Nadav asked.
Elise was trembling. “We did travel the world for a few years. We just weren’t volunteering.”
“What were you doing, then? How were you supporting yourselves?”
Elise looked stricken. What they had been doing was shopping, eating at expensive restaurants, staying at the very top hotels, treating themselves to every creature comfort they could get their hands on. And they funded all of it by tricking people out of their money.
“We were seeing the world,” Calliope explained. “My mom showed me all the historical and cultural sights, taught me to appreciate diversity.”
Nadav ignored her. His eyes were still on Elise. “You made up all those years of volunteer work? Why? Was it just about the money?”
“Of course not!” Elise stepped forward to put a hand on Nadav’s arm. He recoiled as if scorched.
“You’re telling me you saw me at that party and lied about who you were because of my wit and personality? My money had nothing to do with it?”
Elise flushed. “Okay. I would be lying if I said the money wasn’t part of it—”
“Part of it?”he said, caustically repeating her words.
“That was only at the beginning! Everything is differentnow! I love you,” she persisted, “so much. I had no idea that I could ever love someone this much.”
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say?” Nadav’s voice was very cold and deliberate, and it was far more terrifying than if he had shouted. “You just admitted that you werelyingto me about who you are.”
“I wanted to be someone you might fall in love with! Someone worthy of your love! I was afraid that you wouldn’t love the real me. Don’t you see?” Elise cried out. “Your love has actually made me better. I’m becoming that person, the woman you fell in love with. I’m right here.”
Nadav stared at Elise in blank horror. He stared at her like a man broken: as if he wanted to strip away her charm and her beauty, layer by layer, so he might finally truly understand her, the way that he once believed he did.
“You lied to me. Every morning and every night, with every breath, with every moment of laughter. It was all a lie.”
“No!”Elise’s voice was ragged with desperation. “It wasn’t a lie! I love you, and I know that you love me!”
“How can I love you when you’re a complete stranger?” Nadav said heavily. “I invited you to share my life, and yet I feel like I’m meeting you for the first time.”
Elise’s eyes were wide and round with anguish. “Please. I’m asking for your forgiveness, and I’m asking for another chance.”
Livya turned around to smile at Calliope, an empty, bitter smile that failed to reach her eyes. Calliope swallowed. She and her mom were as still as actresses frozen onstage before the lights go out.
Elise held out her hands, palms up, in a wordless gesture of appeal. “I love you,” she whispered. “Please, I’ll tell you the truth—we can start over—only please don’t say good-bye, not like this, not after everything we’ve shared.”
Nadav was pointedly looking away. “We’re broken,” he said quietly. “My trust is broken. I have no desire to sit here picking up the fragments and try to put them together again when we both know that it will never be the way it was.”
Elise’s frame shook with silent sobs. She’d screwed her eyes shut, as if by closing her eyes she might make this whole thing go away. Calliope couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mom cry—really cry, not the fake tears she could summon on command.
“I’ll leave the apartment to let you pack. You have twenty-four hours,” Nadav announced. “Do not be here when I return. Either of you.”
“Nadav,” Elise pleaded, but his face seemed to have been carved from stone.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. Have you even stopped to think what kind of example you are setting for your daughter, marrying me for my money, lying about who you are?” He gave a defeated sigh. “Livya, let’s go.”
“With pleasure.” Her eyes glinted with malice.
For a moment Calliope thought Elise was going to throw her arms around Nadav, beg him to change his mind. Instead she twisted her wedding ring off her finger and held it out toward him.
The flash of pain in his eyes struck the breath from Calliope’s chest. “That was a gift. It’s yours,” he told her, and then his expression became hard and closed-off again, and he and Livya were gone.
Calliope felt the aftershocks of what had just happened racing through her body. She couldn’t really breathe. “Mom...” she tried, at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry.”
Elise reached up to wipe at her eyes, smearing makeup down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetie. This isn’t your fault.”
